Education

Research Interests

Atmospheric
radiation

Boundary
layer processes

Surface
climate - Radiation and Energy Balance

Projects

Salt Lake Valley
PM2.5 Pollution Study2015-2016

The
Salt Lake Valley PM2.5 Pollution Study is a
multi-university study sponsored by the the Utah
Department of Air Quality. The goal of the study is to
investigate the reactive pathways for the formation of
secondary particulate pollutants during persistent
wintertime cold air pool episodes

My
role is to capture the meteorological conditions during
the air pollution episodes. Instrumentation ranging from
small inexpensive temperature dataloggers deployed along
a height-transect from the valley floor up the basin
sidewall, to sophisticated remote-sensing equipment such
as a Doppler Wind LiDAR, are used to monitor the spatial
and temporal variation of the atmospheric conditions of
the valley cold pools.

Key components of the meteorological measurements
include the timing and strength of mixing in the early
morning, when two reservoirs of air, the surface layer
and the upper part of the cold pool, are combined and
allow chemical reactions to take place.

The influence of other meteorological phenomena, such as
the lake breeze, clean air inflows from tributary
valleys (Parleys Canyon, Mill Creek, etc.), and top-down
erosion of the basin cold air pools are also
investigated.

TheMountain Terrain
Atmospheric Modeling
and Observations
Program (MATERHORN) is a
multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI)
sponsered by the Office of Naval Research.

Goal
of the project is to evaluate the predictability of
atmospheric flows in complex terrain using
state-of-the-art atmospheric models, to pin-point the
model's weaknesses by comparing to a comprehensive new
data-set collected during two month-long field
experiments, and to then improve the models with new
parameterizations.

The
Bingham
Canyon Mine Study investigates the formation and evolution
of wintertime inversions within the deep open-pit Bingham
Canyon Copper Mine. Observations focus on the evolution of
the pseudo-vertical temperature profiles within the mine's
atmosphere and the atmosphere of the adjacent Salt Lake City
Valley. Ventilation of the mine's atmosphere and the role of
winds aloft are evaluated from data collected with our
Doppler Wind LiDAR. Funding comes from Rio Tinto / Kennecott
Utah Copper.

The
Persistent Cold-Air Pool Study (PCAPS) is a three-year
research program funded by the National Science Foundation
to investigate the processes leading to the formation,
maintenance and destruction of persistent mid-winter
temperature inversions (cold-air pools) that form in the
Salt Lake basin.I set up several
lines of inexpensive temperature data loggers running up to
sidewalls of the Salt Lake Basin to collect pseudo-vertical
temperature profiles.Visit
the PCAPS web page!

Meteor
Crater Experiment (METCRAX)2006-2009

METCRAX
was designed to study the formation and development of
cold-air pools in an idealized topography - Arizona's Meteor
Crater. For more information, visit the our METCRAX website
and the project websites of NCARs ISFF
or ISS.

METCRAX is a 3-year program financed by the US National
Science Foundation.

My postdoctoral study within the project was partially (1st
year) financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation,
SNSF. Special
interest in the METCRAX project is to evaluate radiative
effects in the evolution of inversions, such as the

Radiation
(and energy-) balance near the crater surface.

Radiative
flux divergence in the near-surface boundary layer.

ETH
Greenland Summit Experiment2000-2003

The
ETH
Greenland Summit project was designed to study the climate
of the so-called "dry snow zone" of the Greenland Ice
Sheet, the area where net accumulation occurs on the
ice-sheet.

My contribution to this project as a PhD student at the
Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science IACETH
of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH)
was to evaluate the surface energy balance and to study
the divergence of longwave radiation in the stably
stratified boundary layer.
An brief personal overview of the project can be found here.
My doctoral thesis can be downloaded at the ETH
E-collection.

Personal
Interests

I
very much enjoy the outdoors, experiencing nature. I often try to
capture my view on things using the means of photography.